Hello from Tanzania!
My name is Olivia Tuel and I am from Clarence, Iowa. I am a junior biology major at Buena Vista University. Today was another great day at Light in Africa. We woke up to a clear sight of the beautiful Mount Kilimanjaro, which has been hidden by clouds since our arrival. After a delicious breakfast, we went down to the Butterfly House, which was the almost magical garden filled with a variety of plants, ranging from fruit trees to beautiful flowers. One of my favorite areas of the garden was the pen with guinea pigs, rabbits, and a couple turtles. We were given the task of cleaning out a small pond. We took out all of the old water, caught the koi and gold fish, and refilled the pond with new water. I’m sure the fish are happy with their cleaner home. Before we headed to lunch, we stopped and played with some of the kids from Happy House.
With Christmas quickly approaching, we decided we needed to get all of the supplies in order to make Christmas ornaments with the children. We spent part of the afternoon organizing all of the materials and finalizing what ornaments we were going to make with the different age groups. We are all prepared for the upcoming week of preparing and decorating for Christmas. I’m sure it will be a week full of holiday spirit.
Before we called it a day, we started another project by the Butterfly House. A couple of us moved around rocks to create a nice border around the garden, while the other two pulled weeds. It was definitely a dirty job. We will spend the rest of the night relaxing and planning some more activities for the week ahead.